


Priesthood and Poetry

by KChan88



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 12:49:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7104118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KChan88/pseuds/KChan88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small contribution for Barricade Day 2016. After Le Cabuc, Enjolras and Prouvaire talk together on the barricade, sharing a moment in a space of quiet, reflecting on sacrifice, the nature of revolution, and sin-eaters. Based largely on two things; one, I’m always wanting to see more interaction between Enjolras and Prouvaire, and two, I saw in a piece of meta once the idea that Enjolras was something like a sin-eater, and I wanted to explore that a bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Priesthood and Poetry

**June 5, 1832**

Street warfare offers strange, unexpected silences.

Enjolras takes advantage of one of these, the odd quiet devoid of preparation and shouts and gunfire almost loud in his ears, and steps toward the back of the barricade. He closes his eyes a moment, leaning his hand against the wall of the Corinthe and taking in a breath. He hears what sounds like the marching footsteps of more National Guardsmen somewhere near the rue de la Chanvrerie; _you are the chief_ , he reminds himself. _You must focus_.

He looks down at his hands, heavy with the weight of Le Cabuc's blood despite nary a splatter on his skin.

_I’ve obeyed necessity_ , he hears himself say.

They do not live in the world he sees so clearly yet, that world where progress is not forged in blood. But there are sins he cannot allow, sins that their opponents would use to smear their revolution in years to come, even if it meant taking on sin himself. He’d seem them do the same to ’89, to ’93: the mistakes and errors of a human revolution held up to the light and examined and ripped apart until they forgot that the French Revolution pushed forward more social progress in the West than any such rebellion that came before.

_The revolutionaries allowed this_ , their opponents would say, as they put back in place a society and an economy that ensured people’s hunger to the point they would riot in the streets just for bread, claiming they were truly the ones who showed mercy. _So how could they be right? What good does violence do?_

_What about the violence of your wars and your poverty and your monarchy_? _Of children running about the streets in rags, abandoned and hungry?_ Enjolras always replies in response to such arguments. _What about near 20,000 people dead of cholera in Paris, most of them poor?_

He could go on.

This is why he could not tolerate the death of the old man in the window. He could not allow innocent people to die at their hands because those were the very people they fought for, even if they didn’t pick up arms and join them.

_Mercy_ , Le Cabuc had pleaded, and Enjolras' hands tremble at the memory, yet he would not have acted differently if given another chance. That, he muses, requires a different society than the one they inhabit now.

He turns at the sound of footsteps behind him on the paving stones. They’re quiet and unobtrusive, and if he wasn’t so alert even in his introspection he might have missed them entirely.

“Prouvaire,” he says, unable to keep from smiling softly at his friend.

“I came to check on you,” Prouvaire answers, stepping closer and returning the smile, though he still looks somber.

_I’m fine_ , Enjolras almost says in reflex, though for some reason the words won’t come forth. There is a clash of emotions in his chest, which is light with hope and drive, but heavy with the toll of the means they must partake in to accomplish their ends. He could not be anything less than willing in this violence, no matter the marks it leaves on him; that future he sees is _so_ bright it nearly blinds him, the sublime feeling sitting at the roots of his soul making him feel as if he will burst. But he _sees_ it, that future, and he is willing to tread down this path to see it happen, hopefully improving on the mistakes of the revolutionaries who tread this apocalypse before him.

“Have you ever heard of a sin-eater?” Prouvaire asks when Enjolras doesn’t reply with anything more than a widening of his previous smile.

“I don’t believe so, no,” Enjolras says, brushing a stray hair behind his ear as Prouvaire contemplates him.

“I’ve read some about them, although there’s not much I could find in actual religious practice, it was more folklore,” Prouvaire explains, that usual dreamy quality to his voice even as he focuses in on the moment. “But I thought of it when you said what you did about us being the priests of the Republic, the sacrificial offerings. About you having judged that man you shot as well as yourself.”

There is however, no judgement in Prouvaire’s face as Enjolras looks back at him, but only understanding. Perhaps even admiration.

“There’s all sorts of myths but the basic idea is that a sin-eater takes on the sins of other people,” Prouvaire continues. “Sometimes at the end of someone’s life, if you’re going by the Aztec legend. Sometimes they do so through a ritual meal, taking on the sins of entire households after someone dies. Christ is often looked at as a sin-eater, though it’s present in more religions than just Christianity. It’s looked at as a form of cleansing and redemption.”

Prouvaire stops, not elaborating further; it’s something he often does, Enjolras notes, waiting to see if the other person will understand his meaning.

“And you apply that to us and what we’re doing here?” Enjolras asks.

“To us yes,” Prouvaire answers. “But to you especially.”

“I think you give me too much credit, my friend,” Enjolras protests.  “We are all here making sacrifices, risking our lives.”

“Certainly,” Prouvaire says. “We are all taking on these burdens. Revolution is a toll-gate of sorts, isn’t it? We are willing to partake in this bloodshed so that we might cleanse the sins of the society in which we live so that we might improve it, until we reach a place where we don’t have to partake in violence like this. When progress can be reached without such things, yet I believe that in some sense, we will always have to fight for it, even without weapons, but instead with words and universal suffrage and protest. But it was you who took on the burden of executing that man.”

“And you do not…judge me for that?” Enjolras asks.

“No, Enjolras,” Prouvaire says, serious. “It was everything you said it was. A terrible necessity. You also said, _monsters disappear before angels_. Well, I could never think you the monster, but always the angel. Angels can be quite frightening you know, but also beautiful. So beautiful in fact, that people have trouble looking at them for being overwhelmed by it. I think it applies here; we do not yet know if the people will join us, but if they don’t it is not because we are wrong, it is because they fear, even if what they fear is something beautiful. Something all filled with dawn. We all see that dawn, but I think you make your home in it, which is why you are willing to do what it takes. Which is why you protect our revolution with every part of yourself.”

“Prouvaire,” Enjolras tries, feeling a lump growing in his throat, moisture gathering at the edges of his eyes. But his friend holds up a hand, and Enjolras falls silent again, letting him finish.

"You would take on all the sins of humanity to create a better France. A better society," Prouvaire says. “So try not to judge yourself too harshly, my friend. I know the rip that moment put in your soul, but what is friendship for if not to mend it? It won’t be perfect again, it might be tattered, but it is no less filled with light. You are willing to ache and bleed and break for France. We all are, and I suspect one day, no matter if it’s tomorrow or 100 years from now, that such a sacrifice will not go unanswered.”

Enjolras puts out a hand and Prouvaire takes it, holding tight.

“I knew I could do it,” Enjolras says, voice a whisper as he tries regaining control of his emotions, but few tears slip forth anyway, and something about Prouvaire’s presence lets him allow himself the moment. “I did not want any of the rest of you to have to commit such an act. And yet what he did could not go unanswered.”

“I know,” Prouvaire says, letting go of Enjolras’ hand and looking for Enjolras’ permission before touching his face, wiping away the tears with his thumbs, a moment of intimate vulnerability in this place that rests on the edge of life and death. Prouvaire takes Enjolras’ hand back, and Enjolras runs his thumb absentmindedly over the skin. “What was that you said earlier?” Prouvaire asks. “ _Now is not the time to mention the word love, but I mention it anyway, and I glorify it_ ….”

“ _Love, the future is thine_ ,” Enjolras finishes. He feels his own smile grace his features again, full and genuine and real this time, reaching his eyes, seeing an echo of his own expression on Prouvaire’s face.

They sit quietly for a time after that, their eyes landing on their friends, who are gathered a few feet away, a bit apart from the other men. Courfeyrac stands next to Combeferre, resting his forearm on Combeferre’s shoulder. Combeferre is saying something about how cannons operate, gesticulating enthusiastically with his free arm. Bossuet and Joly lean against each other, listening, Bossuet’s eyes flitting upward toward the window of the room where Grantaire sleeps. Bahorel has a loose arm around Feuilly’s shoulders, and the latter looks over at Enjolras, offering a smile and adjusting his cap. The sight of all of them warms Enjolras to the tips of his fingers, and Courfeyrac, noticing Enjolras and Feuilly’s silent exchange, calls them over.

“You two come here,” Courfeyrac says. “No more hiding over there in corner.”

“I suppose we’d best go,” Prouvaire says, the melancholy from earlier replaced with mirth.

“I am scarcely able to deny Courfeyrac,” Enjolras agrees.

They rise, hands still clasped together, only breaking apart as they approach their friends, Bahorel putting his free arm around Prouvaire’s shoulder, and Combeferre looping his around Enjolras’ elbow. In another time, in another century, in another life, they might have grown old, Enjolras muses. He will not say they would have been happy, because they have been happy here, in this time, as much as they would have been future. It is difficult, sometimes, to express how much he loves them, the monumental feeling expressed in small moments; the touch of ink-stained fingers and a shared smile over a pamphlet, the bursts of laughter over a particularly terrible pun, a clasped shoulder, a shared fire and a glass of wine, memories written in the scratches they’ve left on the tables in the Musain and the Corinthe. He carries those feelings around with him in the day to day and they stir in his chest as he thinks of them, a grin sliding onto his face even as he walks alone through the streets of Paris. To know that kind of love is all he could have asked for himself.

Enjolras has never been able to picture himself as an older man, but _oh_ , he would have loved to see his friends grow old, to see their hair turn silver, to hear perhaps, the laughter of their children and their grandchildren, to see the world embrace the qualities of the future they dream of together and living in within its glow. Perhaps they will survive. Perhaps not. It is far too early to predict, and though he could never regret where they stand today, part of him aches to think that his friends' futures may only extend a few hours. A few days. Because to him, they have always been the future. And somehow here on this barricade where ideas and suffering meet, where life and death coexist, where the past and future clash, all jumbled together and moving forward, there is laughter. There is the knowledge that they are here, and even if victory does not come today, it will come, sometimes in great leaps forward, sometimes in pieces and fragments. But it will _come_. It has before, and it will again. If they win, then they will rejoice. If the rebellion falls, others will pick up the torch. Progress is enacted through human hands, through human choice, and they’ve decided to plant themselves here today, in that grand tradition of fighting for mankind.

So no matter what happens today, Enjolras thinks, even if there is loss in the present, they’ve already won.  

 

 


End file.
